Today in Blogworld 10.01.14

Mike Leake

Are You Intellectually Humble?

Here are thirteen great questions to diagnose whether or not you are intellectually humble.

Giving Singles Land to Till

Lore Ferguson gives us four tips for giving singles “land to till”.

Top 10 Sermon Introduction Mistakes

I’ve made a few of these.

Is the Bible Against Spanking?

With the recent hoopla surrounding Adrian Peterson the question of spanking is at the forefront. This article by B21 considers what the Scriptures say about spanking and discipline

I just finished reading a book on The Smothers Brothers. Here they are doing what they do best:

Why I Can’t Be He-Man

Mike Leake 1 Comment

Sometimes, I wish I was He-Man.

Nine words.

That’s all he needs.

Nine words…and a magic sword to hold aloft.

By the Power of Grayskull, I HAVE THE POWER.

And with those words an effeminate looking dude becomes the most powerful man in the universe. Not only is he changed but so is his cowering pet, Cringer. Changed into the mighty battle cat.

Magic words.

I wish I had them.

I’ve got junk in my own life of which I wish I could just hold aloft a sword and shout some gibberish and then all would be well. Besetting sins would disappear as quickly as Prince Adam’s pretty pink vest. By the Power of Grayskull, I’d be the man that I want to be.

Likewise, as a pastor I’d love to be able to shout empowering words at the heavens and see lightning bolts come down and transform me into a guy that saves the day for everyone. If I were He-Man I’d use my pastoral muscles to protect people from their own personal Skeltor’s.

But I’m not He-Man.

And I don’t have magic words.

Nor do I have a magic sword.

Sometimes I don’t know how to fix my own problems. Many times I don’t know how to fix the problems of other people. It seems that every few months something comes up of which I have no clue how to handle. No clue.

I’ve got Bible verses. I’ve got theology. I’ve got books. I’ve got experience. I’ve got friends. But sometimes I simply don’t have the answers. And I don’t have a sword to thrust into the air and solve everything.

I’m not He-Man and I never will be.

And that is okay because magic words don’t actually exist.

But grace does.

And it is through grace that the only One who truly has been given “the tongue of those who are taught” will “sustain with a word him who is weary” (Isaiah 50:4). Jesus doesn’t need magic words because He is the Word. And as such he is able to graciously sustain us with a single word.

With one word from his powerful lips you and I are able to be sustained for all of eternity.

One word.

And that is why I can’t be He-Man. He-Man isn’t real. He’s a mirage for pastors and teachers and writers and husbands and daddies like me. A mirage. That is all.

Only Jesus can speak a word and change the course of history.

Today in Blogworld 09.30.14

Mike Leake

Advice to Young Pastors

Great advice from Don Carson, Danny Akin, and Scotty Smith for young pastors.

Two Big Reasons Evangelism Isn’t Working

How you communicate the gospel matters.

Is Divorce Equivalent to Homosexuality?

This is an important question.

Blogs Gone Cold

Last month Tim Challies mentioned blogs by women that had “gone cold”. Here Hannah Anderson, Courtney Reissig, and Megan Hill.

If this were real, I may actually like cats:

3 Types of Hypocrites

Mike Leake 4 Comments


All of humanity, this side of full redemption, play the role of a hypocrite. We often hear the charge leveled against the church that we are filled with a bunch of hypocrites. This charge is true—at least in part. For the most part when someone says that to me I simply agree and tell such a person that we’ve always got room for one more.

While it is true that we are all hypocrites, there is another sense in which we are of a different stripe of hypocrisy. The Puritans saw three sorts of hypocrisy.

  1. Natural. This hypocrisy has footing in every man. “Even the most upright heart has in it some hypocrisy, and he sometimes seems to be that which he is not; he may be sometimes more full in his profession than he is indeed in his actions”.
  2. Foul and Gross. This is when a man’s heart is not at all what it seems to be to the world. These are as the Pharisees of old, of whom Christ compared to white-washed tombs. “This is when a man shall profess he loves God and Christ and His ways, and yet secretly condemns and hates holiness and resists the motions of God’s Spirit, and is at defiance with all the heavenly rules of life and powerful obedience.”
  3. Formal. This hypocrisy is when a man not only deceives others but deceives his own heart as well. Such a pride may come in part from a man confusing grace in performance with grace in character. He is even afforded a bit of happiness but at the same time he holds “some sweet morsel under his tongue with which he will not part”.

Adapted from Obadiah Sedgwick, The Anatomy of Secret Sins, page 27. 

Regardless of the type of hypocrisy which resides in our heart the answer is found in the light. Christ, who is light, will eventually gut out every last vestige of hypocrisy in his children. Likewise, hypocrites apart from Christ will be exposed and consumed.

God alone has no shadow of turning. And it is this very God which overcomes our record of hypocrisy with his perfect record of righteousness. In Christ the vilest of hypocrites is made authentic and pure.